Vending machines have long been used for selling products to consumers. In the past, vending machine managers needed to send human operators to personally visit each vending machine in order to check on the status of the vending machine, to retrieve the collected cash, and to restock the vending machine with new products to replace the products that had been sold. These vending machines may be provided with a door switch, which would indicate to the vending machine controller whether the access door is open or closed. Many vending machines are configured such that when the vending machine controller detects that the door is open, the vending machine enters into “service mode.”
A problem arises when there is a failure with the door switch such that the vending machine controller believes that the door is open when, in fact, the door is closed. When the vending machine is in service mode, customers are typically unable to purchase products from the vending machine. Thus, a malfunction of the door switch can prevent any sales from occurring, even when the vending machine is otherwise functioning properly. Even worse, when some vending machines are in service mode, a user may be able to reset the pricing of the products in the vending machine or cause the vending machine to vend product for free.
Recently, vending machines have been equipped with monitoring systems for monitoring the status of the vending machine and for keeping track of product sales and restocking. Even more recently, vending machines have been provided with monitoring systems capable of transmitting information regarding the status of the vending machine to a central server. In many cases, existing vending machines are retrofitted with these types of monitoring systems. These monitoring systems may enable the vending machine to report to a central host when a “door open” state is detected. This can help operators to identify machines with malfunctioning door switches. However, due to the wide variety of vending machine designs, the retrofitting process can be difficult and time-consuming, and require skilled service personnel for the installation.
Accordingly, it would be desirable to provide a vending machine monitoring system that can be easily installed at low cost.